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slightly. No, she wasn't asleep around midnight last night. And would I be so good as to
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inform her what business it was of mine? College type, ultra- How they do drift into the
entertainment business. Not that I mind.
When I asked about the refrigeration, she said: "It's merely that I have no particular desire to
know you, Mr. Pamell."
"Why?"
"I'm hardly accountable to you for my preferences." She frowned as if trying to recall
something, added: "In any case 1 don't know. ! just don't like you- Now if you'll pardon me.
1 have another number to sing "
"But, please ... let me explain " ' "Explain what?"
She had me there. I stumbte-tongued, and got a back view of the gown.
How can you apologize to a girl when she doesn't even know that you owe her an apology?
She hadn't been asleep, so she couldn't have dreamed about the skirt incident. And if she
had she was Craswell's dream, not mine. But through some aberration a trickle of thought
waves from Blakiston's machine had planted an unreasonable antipathy to me in her
subconscious mind. And it would need a psychiatrist to dig it out. Or
I phoned Steve from the club office. He was still chewing. I said: "I've got some intensive
thinking to do into that machine of yours. I'll be right over."
She was leaving the microphone as I passed the band on my way out. I looked at her hard
as she came up, getting every detail fixed-
"What time do you go to bed?" I asked.
1 saw the slap coming and ducked.
I said: "I can wait. I'll be seeing you. Happy dreams."
THE SAME TO YOU DOUBLED
by Robert Shecldey
In New York, it never fails, the doorbell rings just when you've plopped down onto the couch
for a well-deserved snooze. Now, a person of character would say, "To hell with that, a
man's home is his castle and they can slide any telegrams under the door." But if you're like
Edelstein, not particularly strong on character, then you think to yourself that maybe it's the
blonde from 12C who has come up to borrow a jar of chili powder. Or it could even be some
crazy film producer who wants to make a movie based on the tetters you've been sending
your mother in Santa Monica. (And why not; don't they make movies out of worse material
than that?)
Yet this time, Edelstein had really decided not to answer the bell. Lying on the couch, his
eyes still closed, he called out, "t don't want any."
"Yes you do," a voice from the other side of the door replied,
"I've got all the encyclopedias, brushes and waterless cookery I need," Edelstein called
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back wearily. "Whatever you've got. I've got it already."
"Look." the voice said, "I'm not selling anything. I want to give you something."
Edelstein smiled the thin, sour smile of the New Yorker who knows that if someone made
him a gift of a package of genuine, unmarked $20 bills, he'd still somehow end up having to
pay for it.
"If it'syree," Edelstein answered, "men I definitely can't afford it."
"But I mean really free," the voice said. "1 mean free that it won't cost you anything now or
ever."
206
THE SAME TO YOU DOUBLED 207
"I'm not interested," Edelstein replied, admiring his firm- ness of character.
The voice did not answer.
Edelstein called out, "Hey, if you're still there, please go away."
"My dear Mr. Edelstein," the voice said, "cynicism is merely a form of nai'vete. Mr.
Edelstein, wisdom is discrimi- nation."
"He gives me lectures now," Edeistein said to the wall.
"All right," the voice said, "forget the whole thing, keep your cynicism and your racial
prejudice; do 1 need this kind of trouble?"
"Just a minute," Edelstein answered. "What makes you think I'm prejudiced?"
"Let's not crap around," the voice said. "If I was raising funds for Hadassah or selling Israel
bonds, it would have been different. But, obviously, 1 am what I am, so excuse me for living."
"Not so fast," Edelstein said. "As far as I'm concerned, you're just a voice from the other
side of the door. For all I know, you could be Catholic or Seventh-Day Adventist or even
Jewish."
"You knew." the voice responded.
"Mister, I swear to you "
"Look," the voice said, "it doesn't matter, I come up against a lot of this kind of thing.
Goodbye, Mr. Edelstein."
"Just a minute," Edelstein replied.
He cursed himself for a fool. How often had he fallen for some huckster's line, ending up, for
example, paying $9.98 for an illustrated two-volume Sexual History of Mankind, which his
friend Manowitz had pointed out he could have bought in any Marboro bookstore for $2.98?
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But the voice was right. Edeistein had somehow known that he was dealing with a goy.
And the voice would go away thinking. The Jews. they think they're better than anyone else.
Further, he would tell this to his bigoted friends at the next meeting of the Elks or the Knights
of Columbus, and there it would be, another black eye for the Jews.
"I do have a weak character," Edelstein thought sadly.
208 Robert Sheckley
He called out, "All right! You can come in! But I warn you from the start, I am nol going to buy
anything."
He pulled himself to his feet and started toward the door. Then he stopped, for the voice
had replied, "Thank you very much," and then a man had walked through the closed,
double-locked wooden door.
The man was of medium height, nicely dressed in a gray pinstripe modified Edwardian suit.
His cordovan boots were highly polished. He was black, carried a briefcase, and he had
stepped through Edelstein's door as if it had been made ofiell-0.
"Just a minute, stop, hold on one minute," Edelstein said. He found that he was clasping
both of his hands together and his heart was beating unpleasantly fast.
The man stood perfectly still and at his ease, one yard within the apartment. Edelstein
started to breathe again. He said, "Sorry, I just had a brief attack, a kind of hallucina- tion "
"Want to see me do it again?" the man asked.
"My God, no! So you did walk through the door! Oh, God, I think I'm in trouble." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]